


Make Believe

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:19:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...she wouldn't look away, wouldn't ever take her eyes away from Ed's face, from his shocked, scared, awful hateful face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Believe

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Series. Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt "parched".
> 
> * * *

She wakes in the night, her mouth dry.

The clock flicks over to 3:14 as she watches, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom before she dares to carefully brush back the blankets and steal from the bed. Ed murmurs once when her feet touch the floor and she freezes until his breathing evens out again. 

She doesn't turn on the light in the bathroom, even though the room is down the hall, far from where Ed still sleeps under too many covers. Best not to risk it. She knows exactly where the glass is sitting on the counter, after all; can find the cold water tap easily with only the filtered moonlight to guide her. She reaches for the glass, the same as she has in the middle of the night dozens of times before. 

But this time, her fingers fumble against the glass. This time it slips from her grasp. Shatters on the porcelain tiles.

Carol gasps, flings herself to her knees even as her head swivels toward the bedroom doorway. She holds her breath and scrambles to pick up the shards, waiting to see the light from the bedside lamp flicker into the darkened hall, waiting for the sound of Ed's feet thumping onto the hardwood. 

When there is only silence, she sags against the wall. One of the shards has pierced her calf, the pain sharp and sudden now that the danger is past, and she can feel the thin rivulet of blood stealing slowly down her leg. But she only stares at the slivers of glass in her trembling palm. Cocks her head and admires the way they shine in the moonlight. She raises her right hand, plucks at a particularly long, jagged spike with shaking fingers.

She can picture how easily it would fit in her hand, held easily between index finger and thumb like a doctor's scalpel. She can see the way it would pierce the flesh – the blood first bubbling up, tiny pinpricks against Ed's pale skin, then flooding out in a stream when she pressed down harder to sever the jugular, gushing out to slickly coat her hand, to splatter her face with a fine mist of red red droplets but she wouldn't look away, wouldn't ever take her eyes away from Ed's face, from his shocked, scared, awful hateful face.

He'd never hurt her again. Never look at Sophia the way he does.

Never again.

Carol closes her eyes, shudders against the images that continue to stutter like flashbulbs against her closed lids. The white sheets soaked with blood. Ed's hand flopping helplessly on the blanket, fingers clenching spasmodically. She draws a hand to her mouth, curls the other around the sliver of glass until it cuts into her palm. The pain is like ice water, shocking her out of her grisly fantasy, and she gasps, her breath coming rapidly, the blood from her palm pattering on her thin cotton nightgown. 

When she finally pulls herself to her feet the pain in her hand has faded to a dull throbbing; the trickle of blood from her calf has stopped altogether. She methodically cleans up the mess, bandages her wounds. She's an expert at that, and when her lips twist in a grimace at the thought she merely turns away from the mirror.

She won't be able to hide the bandage on her hand, so she'll confess to breaking the glass in the morning, while she makes Ed his favourite breakfast. He's doing a double shift at the plant, she remembers, what with so many people not showing up lately. Some sickness that's come from the north, making people crazy. By the time he comes home at night he'll probably be so tired he'll have forgotten all about the glass. He'll have forgotten. 

Her legs are rubbery with tension when she walks back to the bedroom. She crawls gingerly back under the sheets, deliberately doesn't picture the blankets soaked in scarlet, doesn't see the jagged piece of glass sticking out from Ed's fleshy jowls.

She closes her eyes. Breathes deeply. 

Bacon and eggs, and French toast. Ed's favourite.


End file.
